


Let The Only Sound (Be The Overflow)

by joidianne4eva



Category: Stargate Atlantis
Genre: Leviathan - Freeform, M/M, implied drowning
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-10-19
Updated: 2015-10-19
Packaged: 2018-04-27 03:46:22
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,043
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5032531
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/joidianne4eva/pseuds/joidianne4eva
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>John remembered the warmth of the sun on his skin and the scent of the sea.</p><p>He remembered the crinkled lines of his dad’s smile as he reached out for him and he remembered the moment that he’d hung suspended between his parents, his father’s fingers brushing his ribs. But then his dad’s hands had vanished and John fell.</p><p>He remembered the blue of the water as he sank and the melody that rose up from beneath him, something as familiar as his mom’s lullabies.</p><p>But most of all he remember <em>her</em>.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Let The Only Sound (Be The Overflow)

**Author's Note:**

> For the Monster Fest over on ushobwri. The prompt- evolutionary throwback. 
> 
> Huge thanks to Cougars_catnip and darkmoore for the read through and beta. You're both awesome \o/

When John Sheppard was four years old, he died.

Though as a four year old the concept of death wasn’t something he’d been able to fully grasp, he still remembered bits and pieces of the day.

He remembered his mom’s laughter as she hitched him up on her hip so that she could help Dave clamber onto the rock they’d been standing on.

John remembered the warmth of the sun on his skin and the scent of the sea.

He remembered the crinkled lines of his dad’s smile as he reached out for him and he remembered the moment that he’d hung suspended between his parents, his father’s fingers brushing his ribs. But then his dad’s hands had vanished and John fell.

He remembered the blue of the water as he sank and the melody that rose up from beneath him, something as familiar as his mom’s lullabies.

But most of all he remember _her_.

Her body moved like it was a part of the sea bed, something so colossal that John didn’t have the time to be afraid…didn’t know that he should be.

For what felt like forever there was nothing but her song and the warmth of her single eye as she surged towards him sending the sea roiling and his tiny body flailing…then she was gone.

His dad’s hands had shook as they yanked him from the water and John had screamed like he was dying as his mom clutched him to her chest, coughing up the water that had filled his lungs.

Later they told him that his dad had stepped on a sea urchin and the shock had let John slip from his numb fingers.

They told him that he’d only been underwater for three minutes.

They told him that whatever he thought he saw down there, wasn’t real…it was just a figment of his imagination.

And he listened to their words but it was never loud enough to wash away the melody of her song.

John was glad it didn’t.

*O*

John was twenty three when he got shot down by friendly fire over the Atlantic.

Over the whine of his engines and the panicked squawking from his radio John had heard her again, her voice rising up like a siren’s song from the depths. And as the water flooded into the small space of his cockpit he saw her watching him, her body casting a shadow over him that blotted out the sun as he sank.

John remembered tugging at the harness and belts keeping him trapped until he pried them loose. He remembered floating free of the sinking machine. He remembered reaching out, his fingers mere inches away from her scales when suddenly she was gone and he was being hauled upwards as the world around him faded to black.

They didn’t tell him anything this time around because he didn’t tell them a damn thing either.

*O*

There was no name for her, nothing that was enough to capture what she truly was but the closest he’d ever come to understanding what she could’ve been was a single word… _leviathan._

John had no proof of her existence but he didn’t need it. She was as real as the sky and he knew that without being able to touch her just like he couldn’t touch the sky…it didn’t stop him from trying.

Her song was a melody woven into his very breath and even when he was nowhere near the sea he could feel her, beneath his feet and in the beat of his heart. The longer he spent searching the more he started to believe that she was more than what he’d seen on those two occasions…something so much more.

…then he met Rodney McKay and her song went from being a simple melody to a cacophony, an orchestra that ebbed and flowed like the sea.

John could feel her curiosity, hidden just beneath his own need but he’d spent too long hiding his own desires to let himself fall in love with a man just when his career finally seemed to be turning around.

The thought seemed to amuse her…and considering the way that John found himself orbiting Rodney at all times, he wasn’t surprised.

Then they’d stepped through the wormhole and if John had thought he could’ve heard her before, he was wrong. Now she was everywhere, in the walls of the city, rising up from beneath the floor and calling from the ocean above their head.

The force of the connection sent him to his knees and there were hands on him as the city shuddered beneath his feet.

Then all he could see was Rodney’s blue, blue eyes, glinting like the waves and he couldn’t help but ask…

“McKay, what’s the chance that this city’s alive?”

Rodney hesitated for a moment and John could almost see the hypothesis flashing through his mind. Thoughts created and discarded at the speed of light but before he could speak the city _sang._

Rodney swallowed, his eyes flickering away before meeting John’s gaze.

“I’d have to say that, given the limited structure that we’ve seen, the chances that this place is anything organic is miniscule at best however given the reaction,” he paused here to glance at the light dancing over John’s skin, like a caress. “…given the reaction I would have to say it was very likely that Atlantis may possess a consciousness of some sort,” he whispered and John grinned as he splayed his fingers where they were pressed to the warm floor.

He didn’t notice the looks of awe as arcs of light streamed from the point of contact, gleaming around him until both he and Rodney were glowing like beacons.

He didn’t see the way that Sumner was staring at him with suspicion or the way that the scientists were edging away from them like they were something to be feared.

He was too focused on that song, the same one he’d heard when he was four.

“Hello, Atlantis,” he greeted, it wasn’t the best name…honestly he’d preferred Leviathan.

He didn’t expect anything in response because she was still a city, no matter what else she was, but respond she did.

_“Hello, John.”_


End file.
